History of Litchfield county, Connecticut, Part 13

Author: J.W. Lewis & Company (Philadelphia, Pa.)
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1532

USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > History of Litchfield county, Connecticut > Part 13

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* The name of "Second Connecticut Artillery" was given by Governor Buckingham.

MILITARY HISTORY.

and the sharp command ' Fall in !' broke upon the still night air, and the soldiers came pouring from their cosey bunks, like angry bees when their hive is rudely disturbed, and formed in line to hear the order.

"The day was passed in busy preparation for de- parture. In the evening the companies assembled near the Arlington House, and the regiment moved to the outskirts of Alexandria, where it bivouacked a little after midnight. Early in the morning* we em- barked for Belle Plain, at which place we arrived in the afternoon, in a pouring rain and in mud knee- deep, in floundering through which many a soldier lost one or both of his shoes. Night found us curled up and shivering under shelter tents among the drip- ping bushes en the steep hillsides, each man supplied with five days' rations and one hundred rounds of ammunition, with orders to carry the same somehow on his person. About midnight the rain ceased, and Maj. Ladd, who had failed to reach us at Alexandria, and had followed right on, paid off the regiment. On the 19th we marched to Fredericksburg, at that time the hospital city, nearly every house of which was filled with wounded, and on the 20th, after passing Massaponax church and crossing the Mat, the Ta, the Po, and the Ny, four small streams that form the Matta- pony, we reached the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac, and were at once assigned to the Second Bri- gade, First Division, Sixth Corps. The army had been lying for several days where we found it, resting a little (although with censtant skirmishing and picket- firing) after the recent severe fighting in the Wilder- ness, and waiting for reinforcements, and now, having received them, it began to swing to the 'left,'-i.e., to the southward. On the 21st the Second Connecticut found itself for the first time face to face with the enemy. Yes, that dingy-looking line, slowly moving to the north along that slope, a mile and a half in front of us, was a body of real, live Johnnies, and those puff's of smoke in the woods below were from the muskets of rebels who were firing on our pickets. During that afternoon and evening our regiment, al- though so lately arrived in the field, occupied n posi- tion perhaps more important and hazardous than any other portion of the entire army. The Ninth Corps had been withdrawn from the right and had passed by our rear to the left, leaving the Sixth Corps on the right, and for several hours our men lay with their bayonets pointing over a semi-circular line of breast- works which constituted the extreme right of the vast army, nearly all of which, except our own brigade, was in motion towards the left. Just nt dark our batteries opened on the rebel lines, eliciting no reply, but frustrating an attempt of the enemy to get in upon our left and cut us off' from the rest of the army. Late in the evening we silently moved out, following the track of the troops that hud preceded us, and began that long and terrible series of marches which

were continued, almost without a breathing-spell, until the 1st of June. The next dayt we passed Guienna Station and reached Bowling Green. About noon of the following day# the first rations were issued since we left Belle Plain, and late at night we arrived at the North Anna River, near Oxford. The men were strung along for miles in the rear, so that when a picket detail of one hundred and twenty men was ordered, immediately upon our arrival, it seemed to take half the regiment. The pickets, although hardly able to stand up, were sent across the river that night. The rest of the men, as they came up, tumbled upen the soft and delicious ground of the corn-field where we had halted, and

"' Not poppy nor mandragora, Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,'

could have medicined them to a sounder sleep than their unutterable weariness quickly brought them. On the 24th the river was crossed by pentons at Jericho Ford, and the corps disposed for action ; but no general engagement occurred, although there was lively skirmishing all day, in which the "first blood" of the Second Connectieut was drawn. The rebels fired upon and drove our pickets, but they were ral- lied behind rifle-pits by Capt. Wadhams, who was in command, with the loss of l'atrick Keegan, of Com- pany M, killed, and three others wounded. Our regi- mental and brigade headquarters that day were at the house of one Fontaine, a wealthy and grand old rebel, who had fled on the approach of our army, with all his household except one or two slave women.

" While some of the field- and staff-officers were ly- ing on the ground near this house that afternoon, Maj. Hubbard suddenly asked, 'What was that ? I thought I heard a " thud" just now.' Maj. Rice, who lay not more than six feet off, replied, 'I guess you (lid, for I felt something go through me ;' and, putting his hand beneath his clothing, drew it forth stained with blood. It was the work of a rebel sharpshooter, who could not have been less than a mile distant, and whose telescopic ritle had probably mistaken the ma- jor's gilt leaves for the stars of n major-general, which they resemble. The projectile passed through the scrotum and the fleshy part of the rump, and could not have exceeded the sixteenth part of an inch in diameter. Mnj. Rice was disabled but two or three days. It was in this manner that Maj .- Gen. Sedgwick had been picked off' n week before, and possibly by the same skillful hand.

" On the 26th the Fifth and Second Corps were engaged on our left, which extended towards Hano- ver Junction ; but our own operations were confined to tearing up a quantity of railroad-track near Noel's Station, and forming a line of battle about nightfall in a thick wood on the erest of a hill adjneent to Lit- tle River. Here again we were on the extreme right of the army. Whether this formation was for the pur-

· MIny 18, 1861.

t May 22, 1904.

: May 23, 1864.

HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

pose of making or resisting an attack I do not know ; but, at all events, the attempt to dislodge Lee from his position here seems to have been abandoned about that time, and at daylight we recrossed the river and marched to Chesterfield Station, where we halted from noon until evening. During the afternoon Upton called on Col. Kellogg and said, 'Colonel, let your men know that we are to have a hard march to- night, so that they may get as much rest as possible. We shall probably be within fifteen miles of Rich- mond to-morrow morning.' At eight o'clock the col- umn was again in motion, on the road following the left bank of the Pamunkey ; and oh ! what language will convey to those who were not there the least idea of the murderous cruelty of that march ? We had al- ready suffered all that flesh and blood seemed able to bear on the road from Spottsylvania to the North Anna, and the future had in store for us many other marches that were grievous beyond expression ; but I am persuaded that if all the regiment were to be sum- moned-the living and the dead-and notified that all their marches except one must be performed over again, and that they might choose which one should be omitted, the almost unanimous cry would be, ' De- liver us from the aecursed night-mareh along the Pa- munkey ! In darkness and silence, hour after hour, without a rest of more than five minutes at a time, the eorps was hurled along that sandy road. There was no danger that the head of the column would lose its way, for a large body of cavalry had preceded us a day or two before, and dead horses lined the road throughout at intervals averaging not more than a quarter of a mile, sickening all the motionless air. Ten o'clock, - eleven o'clock, - midnight, - two o'clock,-four o'clock,-the darkness began to fade before the inflowing tides of the morning light, but still the jaded men moved on. Capt. Burnham, with stockings and rags bound upon his blistered feet like sandals (his boots having been used up and thrown away), hobbled painfully along beside his men, whose feet, like those of all the rest, were in the same con- dition. In the morning, after passing Mongohick and turning to the right, we crossed the Pamunkey on pontons, and encamped on the southern bank, not far from Hanovertown, where we lay until the afternoon of the next day, when we moved three miles and encamped again. The whole army seemed to be close along, and there was considerable cavalry skirmishing somewhere in the neighborhood.

" On the 29th the First Division was sent on a ree- onnoissance, and marched in a roundabout way until it struck the railroad. Having thrown out a strong picket and destroyed a portion of track, we lay down for the night on the direct road leading from Han- overtown to Richmond. On the 30th we were roused at dawn, returned to the Richmond road, drew three days' rations, and marched five or six miles towards Mechanicsville. Some of our men were on pieket, and there was more or less firing all day in front.

On the 31st we lay along the edge of a piece of woods near Tolopotomy Creek, behind breastworks, passing the day without much danger of position. During the entire day there was very lively firing along our front, and we had two B men and three L men wounded,-those two companies being on the skir- mish-line until afternoon, when they were relieved by A and another company. Here again the Sixth Corps held the right; but only twelve hours elapsed before it had been moved (and our regiment with it, of course) in rear of the rest of the army and ap- pcared on the extreme left at Cold Harbor.

"June relieved May at midnight. Half an hour afterwards we had withdrawn from the Tolopotomy and were swinging along the road, through pitchy darkness, towards the south. Having marched, with short and few rests, nearly until the following noon, we halted along the eastern edge of a pine wood, where we lay for perhaps half an hour. Col. Kel- logg remarked that it seemed as though he had been on that ground before, and so he doubtless had in McClellan's campaign. At first there was nothing to indicate that this was more than an ordinary halt, and the men fell to hard-tack and sleep, according as their hunger or weariness predominated, though it was generally the latter, for hard-tack could be taken on the march, while sleep could not. Near us was an unpainted house, inferior looking in everything ex- cept its dimensions, and about half a mile to the south were two or three others of the same sort. At the time we did not know, nor care, what buildings these were, but those of us who were alive the next day learned that they constituted the settlement known as Cold Harbor. In a few minutes the ad- vance of several other columns, together with bat- teries of field artillery and ammunition-trains, began to appear on the open level fields in our rear; but we were so nearly dead with marching and want of sleep that we hardly heeded these movements, or re- flected on their portentous character. 'Jim, there's a pile of troops coming. I guess there's going to be a fight. You'd better wake up.' Such a piece of in- telligence and advice as this, given to a prostrate sol- dier by some less exhausted comrade, would elicit some such reply as this: 'I don't care a damn. I wish they'd shoot us and done with't. I'd rather be shot than marched to death.' Aud the sleeper would not even raise his head to look. But if the prospeet of a coming battle could not move them, there was one other thing that could, and that was the eom- mand 'Fall in!' The brigade moved again towards the left about one o'clock, and, leaving the road, fol- lowed along the edge of the woods until our regiment, which was in the advance, reached a position almost in front of the Cold Harbor houses before mentioned, and about fifteen rods north of the road that Jed from these houses direct to Richmond. Some of the men began to go for water and to gather fuel for cooking coffee, having eaten nothing except raw hard-tack

MILITARY HISTORY.

since the night before ; but this was at once forbidden, and they were ordered to keep near the stacks of muskets. Sheridan's cavalry had been skirmishing on this ground the day before, and five dead rebels lay within thirty feet of where we had halted. Our men dug a grave about two feet deep on the spot, and scarcely were the five laid side by side therein and covered up before a few shots from pickets or sharp- shooters came singing over our heads from a little to the left of our front. It was evident, therefore, that the enemy was there, but in how great force we did not know. It is said that Longstreet's corps, which was in front of the Sixth Corps on the Tolopotomy the day before, had moved, in like manner, from one flank of the rebel army to the other, and now again confronted us at Cold Harbor. But it is hardly prob- able that there was any such force. in our front at noon as was found there at five o'clock.

" Just at the left of the spot where we had stacked our muskets was a hollow, basin-like spot, containing about an acre of land and a few pine- and chestnut- trees, and well protected on the front by a curved line of breastworks which were thrown up during MeClellan's campaign, two years before, or else had been erected by Sheridan's cavalry. In this hollow the three battalions of our regiment were massed about two or three o'clock, preparatory to a charge which had been ordered by Gen. Meade to take place at five. By this time the field-pieces of the First Di- vision had taken position directly in our rear, while the rebels had batteries directly in our front, and for a long time the solid shot flew back and forth between them, right above our heads, lopping off' twigs, limbs, and even large branches, which came crashing down among the ranks. Said Col. Kellogg to the first bat- talion, 'Now, men, when you have the order to move, go in steady, keep cool, keep still until I give you the order to charge, and then go, arms a-port, with a yell. Don't a man of you fire a shot until we are within the enemy's breastworks. I shall be with you.' Even all this, added to a constantly-increasing picket-fire and ominous signs on every hand, could not excite the men to any great degree of interest in what was going on. Their stupor was of a kind that none can describe, and none but soldiers can understand. In proof of this only one incident need be mentioned. Corp. William A. Hosford, then of Company E, heard the foregoing instructions given by Col. Kellogg, and yet was waked out of a sound sleep when the moment came to move forward.

"Col. Upton, the brigade commander, was in almost constant conference with Col. Kellogg, giving him in- structions how and when to proceed, surveying the ground, and anxiously but quietly watching this new regiment, which, although it now constituted more than half his command, he had never seen in action. The arrangement of companies and battalions was the same that had been established in the defenses upon the change from infantry to artillery. The

following diagram will show the formation at Cold Harbor :

FRONT.

FIRST BATTALION-MAJOR HUBBARD.

Left.

A Wadhams.

Right.

Lewis.

Spencer.

Skinner.

SECOND BATTALION-MAJOR RICE.

Deane.

Fenn.

Berry.

Gold,

THIRD BATTALION-MAJOR ELLS.

Marsh.

Horford.

Burnham.

Jones.

" At five o'clock-or it might have been somewhat Jater-the three battalions were moved just in front of the curved breastworks, where they remained for two or three minutes, still closed in mass. Knapsacks were left behind the breastworks. Pine woods-or rather a few tall pine-trees, not numerous enough to hide our movements-extended about ten rods to the front, and then came an open field. Col. Kellogg, having instructed Majs. Rice and Ells to follow at intervals of one hundred paces, placed himselfin front, and gave the command, 'Forward! Gnide Centre ! March !' The first battalion, with the colors in the centre, moved directly forward through the scattering woods, crossed the open field at a double-quick, and entered another pine wood, of younger and thicker growth, where it came upon the first line of rebel rifle- pits, which was abandoned at its approach. Passing this line, the battalion moved on over sloping ground until it reached a small, open hollow, within fifteen or twenty yards of the enemy's main line of breastworks. There had been a thick growth of pine sprouts and saplings on this ground, but the rebels had cut them, probably that very day, and had arranged them so as to form a very effective abatis, thereby clearing the spot, and thus enabling them to see our move- ments. Up to this point there had been no firing sufficient to confuse or check the battalion; but here the rebel musketry opened. The commander of the rebel battalion directly in our front, whoever he was, had his men under excellent control, and his fire was held untit our line had reached the abatis, and then systematically delivered,-first by his rear rank, and then by his front rank. A sheet of flame, sudden ns lightning, red as blood, and so near that it seemed to singe the men's faces, burst along the rebel breast- work ; and the ground and trees close behind our line were plowed and riddled with a thousand balls that just missed the heads of the men. The battalion dropped flat on the ground, und the second volley like the first, nearly all went over. Several men were struck, but not a large number. It is more than probable that if there had been no other than this front fire, the rebel breastworks would have been ours, notwithstanding the pine boughs. But at that moment a long line of rebels on our left, extending all the way to the Rich-

HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

mond road, having nothing in their own front to engage their attention,* and having unobstructed range on the battalion, opened a fire which no human valor could withstand, and which no pen can ade- quately describe. The appended list of casualties tells the story. It was the work of almost a single minute. The air was filled with sulphurous smoke, and the shrieks and howls of more than two hundred and fifty mangled men rose above the yells of triumphant rebels and the roar of their musketry. ABOUT Face ! shouted Col. Kellogg; but it was his last command. He had already been struck in the arm, and the words had scarcely passed his lips when another shot pierced his head, and he fell dead upon the interlacing pine boughs. Wild and blind with wounds, bruises, noise, smoke, and conflicting orders, the men stag- gered in every direction, some of them falling upon the very top of the rebel parapet, where they were completely riddled with bullets, others wan- dering off' into the woods on the right and front, to find their way to death by starvation at Anderson- ville, or never to be heard from again. LIE DOWN! said a voice that rang out above the horrible din. It was the voice of Col. Upton, whose large bay horse was daneing with a bullet in his bowels. The rebels in front now fired as fast as they could load, and those of our men who were not wounded, having worked their way back a few yards into the woods, began to reply with energy. But the wounds showed that nine-tenths of our casualties were inflic- ted by that unopposed fire on the left flank. The second battalion followed the first, according to in- structions, crossed the open field under a scattering fire, and, having moved through the woods until within perhaps seventy-five yards of the first battalion, was confronted by Col. Upton with the command Lie down ! LIE DOWN !- which was obeyed with the utmost alacrity. Maj. Ells was wounded very soon after the third battalion commenced to follow, and his command devolved upon Capt. Jones. Upon reaching the woods, this battalion also had orders to lie down. The rebel fire came through the woods from all parts of the line, and most of the losses in these two battalions occured while lying here. 'Put up your sabre,' said Col. Upton to a young officer, ' I never draw mine until we get into closer quarters than this. See the Johnnies! See the Johnnies ! Boys, we'll have these fellows yet !' said he, pointing to the front, where a long string of them came run- ning through the lines towards us. They were the very men who had delivered the first two volleys in our front, and (there being a lull in the firing at the moment) they came tumbling over the breastwork in

a crowd, within two or three rods of where Kellogg's body lay. We had too much on hand just then to run after safely-bagged prisoners, and when they got to the rear the Third Division (who, by the way, having at first advanced on our right, had broken and run to the rear through our first battalion as it was charging, and were consequently in a convenient position to make the 'capture') put a guard over them and triumphantly marched them to army head- quarters ; and in due time Gen. Meade issued an order complimenting the Third Division of the Sixth Army Corps for having captured between three and four hundred prisoners, which they never captured at all.t The lines now became very much mixed. Those of the first battalion who were not killed or wounded gradually crawled or worked back ; wounded men were carried through to the rear; and the woods began to grow dark, either with night or smoke, or both. The news of Kellogg's death quickly found its way everywhere. The companies were formed and brought up to the breastwork one by one, and the line extended towards the left. As Lieut. Cleveland was moving in with the last company, a squad of rebels rose directly in front, fired a volley very wildly, and dropped. The fire was vigorously returned, and the enemy soon vacated the breastwork in our im- mediate front and crept off through the darkness. Thousands and thousands of bullets 'zipped' back and forth over the bodies of the slain, now striking the trees high up with a 'spud,' and now piercing the ground under foot. Upton stood behind a tree in the extreme front, and for a long time fired muskets as fast as the men could load and hand them to him. Some sudden movement caused a panic, and they started to flee, when he cried out with a voice that no man who heard it will ever forget, 'Men of Connecti- cut, stand by me ! We MUST hold this line!' It bronght them back, and the line was held. Firing was kept up all night long, by a few men at a time, to let the enemy know that we were there and awake, and thus to deter them from attempting to retake the line, which they could easily have donc. Maj. Hub- bard sent word twice to Col. Upton that if the enemy should attempt to return he could not possibly hold it. Upton's reply was, 'He must hold it. If they come there, catch them on your bayonets and pitch them over your heads.' At the first ray of dawn it was strengthened and occupied by skirmishers; and during our stay at Cold Harbor, which lasted until midnight of June 12th, it remained our front line, the rebel front line being abont thirty-five rods dis- tant and parallel with it.

" On the morning of the 2d the wounded who still

* The rest of the brigade-i.e., the One Hundred and Twenty-first and Sixty-fifth New York, Ninety-fifth Pennsylvania, and Fifth Maine-were formed in three lines immediately on our left, and advanced when we did. But they received a heavy fire, and advanced but part of the way. Indeed, the first hattalion of our regiment went up to the enemy's breast- work alone. Our right was nobody's left, and our left nobody's right.

+ Every surviving mao of the Second Connecticut Artillery will bear witness that the Ninth New York Artillery (which belonged to the Third Division) came pell-mell through our regiment towards the rear as we were charging, and that the capture of these prisonera was made by our regiment alone. Cul. Upton, who saw the whole of it, said that the matter should he rectified, and the credit given to the Second Connecti- cut. But it never was.

MILITARY HISTORY.

remained were got off to the rear and taken to the division hospital, some two miles back. Many of them had lain all night, with shattered bones, or weak from loss of blood, calling vainly for help, or water, or death. Some of them lay in positions so exposed to the enemy's fire that they could not be reached until the breastworks had been built up and strength- ened at certain points, nor even then without much ingenuity aud much danger ; but at length they were all removed. Where it could be done with safety, the dead were buried during the day. Most of the bodies, however, could not be reached until night, and were then gathered and buried under cover of the darkness.

" On the morning of the 3d the regiment was again moved forward, under the personal command of Col. Upton, from the same spot whenee the fatal charge had been made thirty-six hours before; but this time we proceeded by a eireuitous route which kept us tol- erably well protected. Several, however, were killed and wounded during this movement, and after we had taken position. The line was pushed to the left, eon- siderably nearer the Richmond road than we had been before, and there speedily covered by breastworks. This, I presume, was our part of the movement of June 3d, which the larger histories regard as the battle of Cold Harbor. Perhaps it was. It has always seemed, however, to the survivors of the Second Con- nectieut Heavy Artillery (Upton's Brigade, Russell's Division, Wright's Corps) that the affair of June 1st was entitled to more than the two or three lines of bare mention with which it is tossed off in 'Greeley's American Conflict,' ' Deming's Life of Grant,' ' How- land's Grant,' and probably every other of the more important and comprehensive histories of the war.

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History of Litchfield county, Connecticut, Part 13

Author: J.W. Lewis & Company (Philadelphia, Pa.) Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1532

Author: J.W. Lewis & Company (Philadelphia, Pa.)
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1532